Holidays Are Incomplete Without You

I was thinking about the holidays coming up and realized how different things are now. When I was a kid there were 7000 other people my age running around the house. I felt like I had more cousins than anyone else on the planet. Remember the stockings on Grandma's fireplace? She had a huge mantel and there was still barely room for all the stockings lined up oldest to youngest. Now my kids have 1 cousin to play with. Where did everyone go? Dalton left us. Christa, Tara, and Laura live far away (although Chara did recently join us again) Jason, DJ and Kari do their own thing most of the time. Meredith left us. That pretty much leaves me and Reba, then a ten year gap to Sami and Levi. What happened? I would never have guessed all those years sitting in mountains of presents and playing all kinds of made up games in grandma's doll room that everyone would disappear. Those are some of my happiest memories and I'm sad that we are not all still here or together to continue sharing them. I realize that everyone grows up and makes families of their own. I just can't imagine as a grown up with a family of my own, not including all the people that made my childhood so special. I'm sad for my children. They will never get to have the type of Christmas at grandma's that I had. They will truly miss out. It makes me sad to think about how much of our family has gone off their own way without even slightly including us in their lives or holidays. No matter how fun our Thanksgivings or Christmas's are now I will always feel like they are incomplete.

I haven't been to a holiday for my mom's family in over ten years. That is because I don't feel welcome or included. I certainly hope with my dad's family I haven't done anything to make someone feel like they aren't welcome or included. I suppose I could get out the family book and call my cousins to make sure they know they are missed and wanted at holidays. But I don't want to badger anyone. I suppose each has their own reason for which family to visit and which family to not. In the mean time I am thankful for those of us that do still come together and I'm happy that you will be part of my children's memories of young holidays.